Abstract
Ostrava, in the past nicknamed the steel city of the republic or the city of coal and steel, represented during the socialist period and afterwards the main industrial city of the republic. The social official visual images of the city and life in it represented a happy urban life with glimpses of shining future.
Ostrava was visualized as an embodiment of progress made possible and conditioned by the industrialization and related changes of the urban landscape and everyday life. The article presents the analysis of the official visual discourse on the topic of the city of work and the everyday life of the people in it, constructed through the official photographic publications on Ostrava.
The main constitutive elements of these visual presentations are confronted with unofficial, rather ambivalent testimonies on the alternative urban landscape of the inhabitants of Ostrava, presented by artistic photographs (Kolář, Štreit, but also for example Polášek). The goal of the visual discursive analysis of this double material was the understanding of the basic constituent parts that together made the image of socialist Ostrava, as well as the role assigned to its inhabitants.
On a general level the rich visual material made possible the deliberations upon the relationship of the photographic image and the visual discourse. Therefore I was able to show how by using the similar photographic themes connected with the everyday life and, therefore, by using very similar photographs two Ostravas were constructed - on the one hand the city of work, coal and steel and on the other the city of the everyday life.